The fight was over after just ten seconds. The last man standing, obviously smarter than his friends, fled from the bar followed by the one the Spaniard had punched in the ribs, still winded and clutching at his side as he hobbled towards the exit. Six inert shapes on the floor, among the wreckage of broken chairs and glass, were going to need an ambulance out of there. The barman was on the phone, jabbering furiously to the police.
The Dane had slipped out of the door in the middle of the action, as if he’d finally noticed the commotion and decided to continue his reading somewhere less distracting. Ben hadn’t seen him leave.
The Spaniard turned to Ben. He was breathing hard and blood was smeared at the corner of his mouth. ‘I appreciate your help,’ he said in slurred English. He wobbled on his feet and Ben had to grab his arm to stop him from keeling over.
‘Just evening up the odds a little,’ Ben said. ‘You were doing okay until then.’
The Spaniard wiped at his lips with the back of his hand and gazed at the blood. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just went crazy.’
‘Believe me,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve been there.’
The Spaniard looked mournful. ‘He shouldn’t have said that about her.’
‘I think he knows that now.’ Ben glanced at the unconscious mound on the floor. That single punch had knocked the big porker out cold. Two hundred pounds of prime gammon, taken down in a single blow by a man fifty pounds lighter. The Spaniard obviously had some hidden talents, when he wasn’t drinking himself stupid.
The barman had finished on the phone and was venturing beyond the hatch to inspect the state of his premises and glower at the two men still standing in the ruins. ‘Someone’s going to pay for this!’ he was yelling in Spanish.
‘We should leave before the police arrive,’ the Spaniard said. ‘I live just a couple of minutes from here.’ He paled. ‘Jesus, I feel terrible.’
‘Nothing a couple of pints of strong black coffee can’t fix,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s get you home and sobered up.’
Neither of them spoke much as the Spaniard led the way from the bar and through the narrow, uniformly whitewashed streets of Frigiliana’s old Moorish quarter. Ben followed a few steps behind, watching as the Spaniard tried to hold a straight line and had to keep steadying himself against walls and railings. Ben thought about all the times he’d walked out of bars and pubs with a skinful of whisky and some other guy’s blood on his knuckles, and wondered if he’d been such a sorry sight as this. Never again, he vowed. But it was a vow he’d broken enough times to know he’d probably break it again, some place, some time.
Ben’s left arm felt a little tight and sore after his exertions. A few months earlier, he had been shot from behind at close range with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The surgeon who had pieced his shoulder blade back together had done good work, but he still had pain sometimes. In time, he knew, the twinges would fade, even if they never faded away to nothing. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot.
‘This is it,’ the Spaniard muttered, stopping at an arched doorway on a sloping backstreet. Every inch of the house’s exterior was painted pure brilliant white, like every other building they’d passed, bouncing back the light and warmth of the afternoon sun. The Spaniard fumbled in his pocket and found a ring with a heavy old iron key. After a couple of stabs, he managed to get it in the lock and shoved the door open.
Ben followed him inside. He had no intention of staying any longer than it took to make the guy a remedial cup of coffee and see him settled safely out of harm’s way. Ben himself had been rescued more than once from the perils of a drunken stupor. The last time it had happened had been in the French Alps; his saviour on that occasion had been a massive Nigerian guy named Omar, who’d brought him home rather than let him get picked up by the local gendarmes. Looking out for the Spaniard was a way for Ben to put something back, make himself feel like he’d done something good.
The Spaniard’s home was simply, economically furnished. The walls were white inside as well as out, hung here and there with tasteful art prints. The living room had a single sofa with a low coffee table between it and a TV stand. A large bookcase stood against one wall, heavy with titles on history and philosophy and classical music CDs. It wasn’t the typical home of a bar brawler. The Spaniard was evidently a cultivated guy, within a certain budget. Bookish, scholarly even. But from the mess in the place, it was just as evident that for whatever reason Ben had found him drowning his sorrows in the bar, his comfortable little life had lately fallen apart. Clothes lay strewn about the floor. The sofa was rumpled as though it had been slept on a lot recently. Empty beer cans lined up on the coffee table gave off a sour smell of stale booze.
Ben glanced around him. A corner of the room was set aside as a little study area. Above the desk hung a crucifix, to the left of it a framed degree certificate from the University of Madrid, awarded to one Raul Fuentes for achieving first-class honours in English. To the right of the cross, a poster was tacked to the wall depicting a forlorn-looking polar bear cub alone on a melting ice floe that was drifting on unbroken blue water under a bright and sunny sky, with the legend STOP GLOBAL WARMING NOW.
Next to that hung a smaller framed photo of the Spaniard, grinning and laughing on a white-sanded beach somewhere hot, with his arm around the shoulders of a strikingly beautiful dark-haired woman. She was laughing with him, showing perfect white teeth. It was a happy picture, obviously from a happier time not so very long ago.
‘Raul Fuentes,’ Ben said. ‘That would be you?’
The Spaniard nodded. He slumped on the rumpled sofa. Leaned across to pick up one of the beer cans to give it a shake, in case there might be some left inside.
‘No beer for you,’ Ben said, stepping over to snatch it from his fingers. ‘Which way’s the kitchen? I presume you have coffee in the place.’ Raul Fuentes flopped back against the cushions and sighed, wagged a hand in the direction of a door.
The kitchen was a mess, though Ben could tell it hadn’t always been. Copper saucepans hung neatly on little hooks above the worktop, next to a shelf with a collection of cookbooks. An ornamental wine rack was loaded with a selection of decent bottles that Raul hadn’t yet got around to emptying down his throat. The ones he had filled the bin and stood around the surfaces, along with more empty beer cans and piles of unwashed dishes. Ben shoved them to one side and set about making coffee.
Raul had a real percolator and real fresh-ground beans. Ben approved. The instant stuff was essentially dehydrated military rations, popularised during successive world wars. You shouldn’t have to drink it unless there was no other choice.
As he waited for the coffee to bubble up on the stove, Ben thought about the picture on the wall above the desk and wondered whether the woman in it was the reason behind Raul Fuentes’ troubles. She’s not worth it, mate. The yob’s words had evidently touched a nerve.
When the coffee came up, he poured the contents into two cups. Straight, black, as it came. Milk and sugar were trivial nonessentials at a time like this. He carried the cups back into the other room and set one down in front of Raul.
‘Drink it while it’s hot. It’ll do you good.’
Raul slurped some, and pulled a face.
‘It needs to be strong,’ Ben said.
Raul braved another sip. ‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said, looking up.
‘Ben,’ Ben said.
‘You’re not from around here.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘You’re English.’
‘The half of me that isn’t Irish.’
‘What